Sure, it shares a few characteristics with for-profit businesses…a few with nonprofits…a few with K-12 schools.
But the world of academia is unique.
You know this.
We know this.
And yet, so often, solutions and apps created to manage data for businesses or other kinds of organizations are marketed to colleges and universities as if there were no difference at all.
And since those solutions often come from well-known companies, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking they’ll work just as well in higher ed.
But the truth is…they don’t.
You know this.
We know this.
One of the most common things we hear from new clients is that they tried to work with a company whose services and solutions weren’t tailored to higher ed, and because that went so badly, they went out looking specifically for a company with two crucial attributes:
Solutions made especially for the unique needs of higher ed
Experience working with universities and colleges to set up and implement those solutions.
And they find precisely that at N2N – and more.
At N2N, we know higher ed.
We know your unique needs, your unique structures, your unique challenges and frustrations.
We provide integration for higher ed, by higher ed.
Not only were our integration solutions developed 100% with higher ed in mind, but we even have team members who come from a higher ed background themselves, and have firsthand knowledge of the exact issues facing higher ed in IT.
And perhaps even more importantly than that, N2N has years of experience working with higher ed institutions large and small, from single schools to statewide systems, addressing their unique needs and solving their unique problems with our flagship solution, the Illuminate platform.
So how exactly can we help your institution of higher ed?
We tame the chaos of data.
You’ve got cloud databases, legacy on-premise systems, and miscellaneous SaaS apps being added all the time. You need your data to flow seamlessly between them all – but right now, it’s not flowing.
Someone has to enter data manually into a certain program.
Someone needs to custom code an integration for that new app.
Queries take ages because they’re so complex.
Data quality is suffering because there’s no way to check it all as it moves from application to application.
Innovation is stalled because no one can make your new ideas a reality.
N2N solves each and every one of these problems, and more.
Our Illuminate API management platform makes integrating all your apps and programs a snap – no time-consuming and expensive custom coding necessary. We can automate data transfer, put data quality assurance protocols in place, streamline queries, support your innovative projects, and more. We’ll help you customize and implement the integration solution that’s right for you
We understand higher ed, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to help you with any challenge you’re facing. So give us a call today for a free demo and more info about how we can help your institution.
It’s not often that we share news of our own scholarly achievements here at N2N – we’re usually happy to stay mostly behind-the-scenes, supplying the tools and platforms that enable others to succeed academically.
But we recently made a discovery we’re too excited not to share…and grant us a wee bit of poetic license here 😉
On a recent trip to the UK, a member of the N2N team happened to notice a medieval-looking manuscript on display in the private library of a manor house. Upon further investigation, it turned out that it was written in Old English and had never been translated by an expert, for fear it would be damaged in transit.
Luckily, our intrepid team member happens to be fluent in Old English, and was able to translate the text on the spot.
Intriguingly, the manuscript contained references to modern technology, and the medieval poet seemed to have an astonishing grasp of the challenges today’s university and college IT teams face, “The Battle With Integration.”
Now, it’s true that said team member had consumed some fairly strong beverages before his translation was made, but in spite of that, we are confident that the below accurately reflects the poet’s words.
Enjoy!
Move Over, Beowulf!
Hark! We have heard/tales of IT Teams
Deftly defending/the mead halls they hold.
Their CIOs led them/to glory in battle
As war after tech war/was waged and won.
From clouds in computing/to wifi in walls,
These heroes have met/the challenge of change.
But now a new enemy/stalks CIOs.
From the mist-covered marshes/a monster comes forth –
Accursed Integration!/That bane of IT teams,
Devouring their treasure,/and taking up time.
One famed CIO,/Hrothgar by name,
Put out a call/to be saved from this beast.
A new hero answered,/move o’er, Beowulf!
N2N’s team/strode into the mead hall,
Boasting of besting/Integration’s foul wiles.
For they had the cunning,/the tools and the platform,
If you were really, really geeky, you could say that the One Ring, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, was basically just an evil API Management Platform.
You’d have to be really geeky, though.
Fortunately, we here at N2N are pretty darn geeky. And it makes us a little giddy to think of ourselves as somehow connected to Middle Earth, so we’re gonna run with it.
Because with the One Ring, Sauron was able to integrate all of the other Rings of Power, communicate with them and control them.
It allowed him to efficiently and effectively run his evil “organization,” if you will, quickly and easily obtaining necessary information from all corners of the world, and communicating commands to those under his sway.
And that’s exactly what N2N’s Illuminate platform does, too! (Without the evil, of course.)
Illuminate acts like the One Ring, providing a single platform that integrates all the apps, programs, databases, and systems your institution uses.
It allows data to move freely, in real-time, to and from every part of your institution, without the hassle of manual data transfer or concerns about data quality.
Now, Sauron was pretty much a one-man show.
Sure, he had his minions, but when it came right down to it, he was basically running the whole of Mordor, including Mordor’s IT department, on his own.
That’s why he was so smart to make use of that ring. Can you imagine trusting orcs to handle manual data transfer? No way.
He needed a single, central tool that would be easy to use, and automate the integration, rather than requiring constant attention.
Our Illuminate API Management Platform provides the exact same convenience factor for non-evil CEOs and CIOs of smaller insitutions.
By using an Integration-Platform-as-a-Service, rather than your own staffing, to handle data, you can be every bit as efficient and effective as if you had a huge army of IT guys at hand. It’s working smarter, not harder, using tech to do a job you’d need to hire more employees for otherwise – and getting it all done much more quickly and easily than if you did have employees custom coding your integrations for you.
Another big bonus of using a single central platform for integration is that anyone in your institution can easily access and use it. Just like a hobbit was able to tap into the One Ring’s powers simply by slipping it on, your staff won’t be dependent on the one guy who knows how the integrations work, but is out of town this week. They’ll be able to log in and instantly, intuitively get the job done – or call N2N to help, if needed.
Leveraging the Illuminate platform, and the legendary (if we do say so ourselves) customer support that comes along with it, is the smart way to address data management needs at a smaller institution. We’ve helped institutions large and small with their integration needs – and not one of them has ever felt the urge to toss their computers into Mount Doom. Just sayin’.
So if you’d like to embark on your own quest for smart integration, contact N2N today for a free demo of Illuminate. Just speak friend and enter! (And if you got that reference, you’re just as geeky as we are. Congrats!)
Sing to me, Muse, of the university CIO with all the IT tricks up his sleeve, CIOdysseus.
Sacking Troy was nothing compared to the feats CIOdysseus performed every day, moving his university into the future, while keeping all aspects of campus tech humming smoothly.
If the IT gods sent a challenge his way, CIOdysseus solved it handily, and so he was renowned far and wide for his cunning and skill.
But the gods would not be overshadowed by this hero, so they cursed him with the longest and most tedious IT issue of all.
Data and application integration.
10 long semesters CIOdysseus labored mightily to transfer data between the varied apps and databases of his institution, fighting the ill will of the gods.
His IT team struggled with the oars of manual data transfer, while he kept them safe from the siren song of integration tools designed for business, and not for higher ed.
He navigated carefully between the whirlpool of custom coding, that would suck away all internal IT department time and resources, and the sea monster of outsourcing, that would eat up departmental budgets in one bite.
He outsmarted the Cyclops, a lumbering, slow-witted monstrosity born of cobbling together various different integration solutions piecemeal – an existing API here, a custom-coded integration there, with some manual data transfer thrown in as well – and all with the constant danger of compromised data quality.
He did dally for a time on the island of Circe, but never succumbed to the same fate as many of his colleagues from other institutions of higher ed – being turned into a raving animal doomed to inarticulate frustration over integration woes.
For after all his labors and wanderings, CIOdysseus finally found the solution, the answer to this ultimate challenge from the IT gods. With his unmatched cunning, he recognized it at once as the key.
What was this miraculous solution, this gift from a sympathetic IT god?
None other than N2N’s API Management Platform, Illuminate.
As its very name foretells, this integration tool illuminated the path CIOdysseus needed to take, showing him the secrets of simple and quick integration.
This glorious weapon in the battle for integration bore a design upon its glittering surface, to let all who saw it know of its storied past. As CIOdysseus gazed upon it, he saw images of other universities and colleges who had been aided by its implementation – entire states who had made use of it in innovative new projects, integrating systems from every community college and state university across their states, in order to improve student outcomes. He saw smaller, individual institutions who had utilized N2N’s Illuminate to work smarter, not harder, or solve a data transfer problem that was crippling their productivity and accuracy – and thus, their student success.
These tableaus showed CIOdysseus that this was the correct course to take, and so, in his wisdom, he called N2N.
If you, too, noble warrior, have been afflicted by the IT gods and have embarked on your own quest for the perfect integration tool, journey no farther. Here at N2N, you can put down your oars, remain safe from monsters, and manage your institution’s integration needs simply, quickly, and affordably, with the full support of N2N along the way. Call us today, as the mighty CIOdysseus did, and be glad at heart, hero.
Growing up, did you ever see the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Brave Little Tailor? The one where Mickey takes on a giant who’s wreaking havoc all around the countryside, sitting on farmhouses, downing handfuls of pumpkins like they’re candy, and smoking haystack cigars?
Well, Disney’s take on the story was based on one of Grimm’s fairy tales, called Seven At One Blow, which tells the tale of an eminently resourceful tailor who comes up with unique solutions to a series of challenges and eventually ends up as king.
The story starts with the tailor gleefully boasting about the fact that he unexpectedly managed to swat 7 flies at once, to keep a pie safe – but of course, his “seven at one blow” is misunderstood, and lands him in all kinds of sticky situations, which result in him besting several giants, an evil unicorn, a murderous wild boar, the army, and even the king, all by using his wits and the various items in his pockets.
You could say his kingdom had its share of problems – and pretty unique ones at that. Have you ever heard of an evil unicorn before?
At N2N, we like to think of ourselves as similar in some ways to that gallant tailor.
Because here’s the thing.
Every college, every university, has a unique IT set-up, a unique way of doing things, and unique challenges and problems they’re looking to overcome.
Maybe they use Banner, PowerCampus, or Colleague. Or maybe they use PeopleSoft, CampusVue, or Jenzabar. They might use Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, or D2L…Salesforce…Oracle…or any number of other shiny new SaaS apps or creaky old legacy systems.
So many different configuration possibilities – and so many different issues with integrating all those myriad programs.
That’s where we come in.
And fell seven with one blow.
At N2N, we’re not just a one-hit wonder. We’re a one-stop shop.
With a single solution – our API Management Platform, Illuminate – we can help any institution with any integration challenge.
Don’t believe us? Toss a few giants our way and then stand back and watch.
We’re official partners of Ellucian, Oracle, Modo Labs, Front Rush, Coursedog, ACI, MTFX, and Northstar – just to name a few.
We’ve helped entire states create innovative new ways to serve their millions of community college or state university students, like Florida and California.
We’ve helped whole community college districts revamp and streamline their processes to save resources and boost productivity.
Whether we’re swatting flies or cornering evil unicorns, N2N’s Illuminate platform doesn’t just help with one problem, or one system – we can help you with all of them, in one fell swoop.
It doesn’t matter where your integration needs start or end or what you want to integrate – Illuminate has a place in your integration strategy no matter what.
It’ll help you make business decisions. It’ll boost your bottom line. It’ll pave the way to your future, while saving you time and money, they said.
How’s that working out for ya?
Sure, in a perfect world, your data warehouse would be humming along just fine, assimilating data from multiple different sources, assuring data quality, and giving you analytical insights you can take to the bank.
But in reality? You’re most likely dealing with hassle after hassle, headache after headache.
Oh, those were duplicate records? Darn…
Wait, we’re missing data? How did that happen?
You mean we based those projections and strategies on incomplete or faulty data? Oh no!
The hard truth is, your data warehouse is useless – and worse than useless, harmful – if the data quality is poor.
But for such a mammoth system as a data warehouse, what complex measures would have to be taken in order to fix all the issues?
Well, you could pay programmers to custom code your way out of the mess, consuming resources and probably still not getting quite the solution you were hoping for…
Or you could try a simple, quick, affordable, and elegant solution instead – the Illuminate platform.
Illuminate is an API Management Platform that can integrate all your data feeds, all your shiny new SaaS apps and your creaky legacy systems, and get all that information flowing into your data warehouse effortlessly – and flawlessly – in real-time. Data quality is not an issue, because Illuminate can sort data based on any parameters you choose, to filter out duplicates or errors, and transform or mask data from the source system before sending to the warehouse.
Sound too good to be true?
The reason Illuminate can do all this so quickly and easily is that it comes prebuilt with API building blocks that anyone can intuitively snap together in minutes to build those connections. That’s right – anyone. Not just programmers or IT professionals – anyone. In minutes.
Of course, if you’ve got a data warehousing set-up that you’d prefer professional help with, we here at N2N are more than happy to oblige. We can work with you to make sure Illuminate is configured exactly according to your needs, connecting the right apps and data feeds into your data warehouse, and ensuring data quality.
We’ve done that for many clients, such as Dunwoody College of Technology, where we integrated Ellucian PowerCampus with Macmillan Learning to enable automated, scheduled SIS to SaaS web-service transfers and also allow for easy .CSV data extraction.
We did it for Waubonsee Community College, which needed a way to ensure data quality and prevent duplicate records.
We’re currently working with the California Community College System and the Florida Virtual Campus to implement the infrastructure for each institution in their systems to provide real-time data exchange for course searches and a cross enrollment application to allow students from any campus to search and register for online classes offered by any other campus.
And we can help your institution with your needs, too. Whether that’s populating a data warehouse or integrating applications to one another.
Just fill out this quick contact form and we can set up a free demo. We’d love to chat about your data warehousing needs, and show you exactly what we can do for you.
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